How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town

How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town
Director:Jeremy LaLonde
Producer:Jordan Walker & Chris Bennett
Screenwriter:Jeremy LaLonde
Music:Jeff Toyne
Cinematographer:D. Gregor Hagey
Editor:Jeremy LaLonde
Cast:
  Jewel Staite
  Ennis Esmer
  Lauren Lee Smith
  Katharine Isabelle
  Mark O'Brien
  Jonas Chernick 

I want to explore an idea. That idea is filmic sweetness. It's actually a lot rarer than you think. Yes, there are sweet films, but the line to get there is basically a tightrope strung between cloying earnestness and detached sappiness. If you can travel that wire, well, you're one up on nearly every other film that has tried to make the trip.

The Sweet Sex Comedy is a bird of beautiful plumage that you'll never seen in the wild. There are so few examples, you're likely better off trying to encounter it in the Natural History Museum that is your one remaining local video store. If you can be a sweet sex comedy, you're golden. Off the top of my head, only American Pie pops in. 

So, when I watched How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town,  I wasn't expecting it to be the sweetheart of a picture that I can't wait for my more cynical friends to enjoy!

The basic idea is this - the daughter of a resected-author of Young Adult novels, Cassie, happens to be a respected sex columnist. She also happens to secretly be a virgin, perhaps because of the traumatic experience that opens the film. After her mother passes, she has to return to her hometown, where she faces old nemesises, and attitudes, while also tapping into a strange goldmine. The guy she once nearly bedded is having trouble conceiving with his wife, one of Cassie's former foes, and thus his wife brings up an idea: use Cassie to bring on an Orgy, which she can use as an excuse to become pregnant by one of the other attendees. 

The story is strange, and it gets a bit silly at times, but it never uses the sexual heat as a crutch. As with another Canadian sex comedy that pulled a fair bit of Sweet off, Young People Fucking (or Y.P.F.), the nudity and sex actually means something, and there's a certain uncomfortable sense that when the characters are in their all-together, or when our cold commanding wife dons her bustier, thigh-highs, and garters, there's a sense that they are all playing dress-up; this is not their world, but they would so like it to be. Only the characters who are truly comfortable are seen as the slightest bit ready for what they're about to do, and in essence, become. The Orgy is supposed to transform them all, and perhaps it does.

The characterization is phenomenal. Every roamer through this sexual back country has their quirks, and more importantly, their reasons. The actors, led by the absolutely magnetic Jewel Staite (Yes, Kaylee from Firefly), lays their role with a certain combination of clueless passion, and absolute mortal certainty that they are on the right path. As Cassie tries to explain how to put together a right proper orgy, she comes off like a post on Yahoo! Answers, but she actually gives it a certainly steely-eyed strength because she seems to believe it will further her dreams.

Perhaps the best relationship in the film is the strange, lovely, and ultra-1990s snarktastic coupling of a pair of Music Store Owner Chester, and clerk Polly. The pair, played with a certain amount of Singles-era irony by Jonas Chernick and Tommie-Amber Pirie, provide a very sweet, and all-too-familiar, scenario of the whole "I Love You, but I can't..." thing. The two of them are great, and while Polly feels like she's channeling Janeane Garofalo from Reality Bites, and Chester has practically put on John Cusack in High Fidelity suit, it's still a completely satisfying pair and a high-point for the film. 

In all, How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town delivers in every way you would not have expected from the title. There's nudity, but used wisely, there's frank sexual discussion, which feels natural, and there's wonderful acting that allows the film to feel more like a love letter than a sext.